


The things we're capable of

by Trojie



Series: Defeat [2]
Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Breathplay, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Infidelity, M/M, Plot What Plot/Porn Without Plot, Restraints
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-14
Updated: 2012-10-14
Packaged: 2017-11-16 07:56:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/537232
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trojie/pseuds/Trojie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Before a battle Merlin squires for Arthur, makes him ready to face the fight. After a battle, it's Arthur who brings Merlin back down. An AU of <a href="http://archiveofourown.org/works/107368">Defeat</a>.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The things we're capable of

**Author's Note:**

> This was not intended to be, but has ended up as, an alternate-universe version of [Defeat](http://archiveofourown.org/works/107368). In that fic, Arthur and Merlin both knew that post-battle sex was not going to fix their issues (although not-having it didn't help either). In this one, uh, they have taken a somewhat different approach.
> 
> **Warnings:** Breathplay, emotional impairment on Merlin's part (in the context of post-battle shock), infidelity (Arthur is married). 
> 
> Beta-read by the utterly amazing Tourdefierce <3

After a battle, Merlin is a wild thing, and like a wild thing, he lies in wait for Arthur. As far as Arthur is concerned, the only thing about Merlin that is terrifying, or dangerous, is how much he loves him. But Merlin thinks otherwise, after a battle. 

This time is no exception. 

'What am I to you?' Merlin demands. He's half in the dark, on the far side of Arthur's palatial, ridiculous tent from the flap Arthur has just entered by. 'Don't tell me what I do for you, tell me what you think I _am_ ,' he adds before Arthur can say a word. 

Merlin's glare should kick up sparks where it lands. Instead it just makes Arthur long to hold him, this bright, brittle creature he's been given to love and to wield for the glory of Albion that is to come. This is the air of a man in shock from his own actions, in fear and in disbelief. Arthur is not surprised. Half of Merlin's power comes from his not being trained, from his edge not being dulled. He's a shard of glass, not a beaten-true sword blade.

'Don't be a fool,' Arthur says instead of answering with the truth. 

'It's a reasonable question,' says Merlin, mulishly, but Arthur knows that the question is just a meaningless distraction. Arthur's seen Merlin rail and weep at his own behaviour, heard him call himself a monster, and he needs Arthur to show him it isn't true. He needs care. 

Arthur will care for him. Oh yes. His blood is still boiling and he still sees with a commander's eye, sees what is needed here. His fighting isn't done yet, although he wishes that it were. He wants to lay Merlin down across the bed and gentle him into sleep, but Merlin won't take rest from him, or succour or safety. And despite himself, looking at Merlin so strung out like this, Arthur feels battlefever turn into desire, because if this is the only time they can have together then Arthur will take it, bitter-hot though it is.

He steps across the space between them and takes Merlin into his arms, quelling the twist and fight of him with strength until he quiets, or at least stills. He still thrums with energy in Arthur's hold, and when Arthur kisses him he throws himself into it violently until Arthur half-wants to throw him down on the bed.

He doesn't get that far, because Merlin grapples for control and for Arthur's wrists, and pushes him down instead.

'I could _kill_ you,' he gasps, straddling Arthur and looking down at him with some kind of terror mixed with lust on his face. 'Why do you keep letting this happen?' Arthur doesn't know if Merlin means their intimacy or his place on the battlefield.

'Because I can,' says Arthur, bracing himself carefully, one foot flat on the mattress, the other knee up high, resting against Merlin's hip. 'Because I can take care of myself,' he says, and twists his hands until it's him holding Merlin's wrists, and then throws them over, so that it's Merlin flat on his back, arching up under Arthur's weight. 'Because I want to,' Arthur says, staring down at Merlin, and then carefully, he fits his own broad hand across the taut sinew of Merlin's neck. 'Because you want me to.'

Merlin swallows, and slowly his eyes flutter shut. His throat works under Arthur's palm, and he whispers, 'Yes,' and Arthur tightens his grip until a ghost of a smile, strained and hungry, flits across Merlin's face. The warlock rolls his hips under Arthur like a bucking horse, and Arthur's hold tightens even further, trying to keep his place, until Merlin is grinding up against him and wheezing. 

'If I let go, will you stay?' Arthur asks. 'I need to -' and fumbles between them to get at Merlin's belt, unwilling to relinquish his hand against Merlin's frantically bobbing throat, the pressure that grounds him. But he gets no further than fumbling, because Merlin blinks fiery gold and their clothes, all of them, rip off like they're being dragged by some invisible beast, tearing seams and clawing great rents in the cloth. Arthur knows Merlin can vanish clothes if he wants to, has seen and felt him do it - for him to destroy them like this must mean he's either at the end of his patience or the end of his control. 

'Don't let go,' Merlin rasps, begs, under Arthur's hands, and coughs. 'God. Please, Arthur, don't let me go.' Each word sounds like it costs him dearly. And so Arthur doesn't. He holds on like his life depends on it.

'I don't want to hurt you,' he says, as Merlin's thighs part to let him sink between them, and then come up to cradle round his hips.

Merlin's throat works under Arthur's hand, and he grinds out, 'I do. I want you to,' and he jerks up against Arthur's body. Arthur can't bear to hear his voice grate like that, and he eases the pressure off. It's like he took off a gag - Merlin starts to talk, low and hoarse almost like he's chanting. 'I want you to hurt me,' he says, turning his head to mouth at where Arthur's pulse is jumping in his arm. 'I want you to fuck me until I can't anymore, until I'm done, until I can't move, and I want you to choke me until I can't talk.' He sounds bitter and urgent, but his body is eager for Arthur's. 'I want you to use me until I'm safe, Arthur, until I can be trusted in your bed,' he demands.

He doesn't know how much it cuts Arthur to hear these things. He can't, surely, or he'd stop saying them. Arthur kisses him then, hard and hungry, because he can't say anything that will stop Merlin when he's like this, and he fumbles with his free hand until he catches on a strip of cloth that was once the sleeve of a shirt. 

Tying Merlin up was something Arthur used to resist. There are too many stories about nobles who take this kind of service from their household even if their maids and valets don't wish to give it, and ropes feature in them heavily. But it makes Merlin relax somehow, to be bound, and it lets Arthur's hands free to touch him softly, to try and gentle him back to earth. Arthur aches to give Merlin what he wants, but has never yet been able to give him what he asks for. 

He wraps Merlin's wrists and pushes him down softly, and takes what he wants for himself - a kiss. Curled to Merlin's side, he kisses him slow and rubs his thumb over Merlin's temple, smooths the whorl of hair that falls there. 

Merlin moans in his throat and twists against his bonds, trying to push into Arthur's orbit; drag Arthur into a rhythm. Arthur wants to fight him, on one level, to lay him out and string him out and be as chaste as he might … but they're naked and his lover is bound and his lover is _begging him_ for anything. For more than he feels safe giving, even.

When Arthur parts Merlin's thighs, it's the first time Merlin goes without a fight, and he tips his head back to bare his throat as well.

'I won't hurt you,' Arthur says. 

'You can't,' says Merlin. 

'No,' Arthur agrees, searching out the bottle of oil. 'I can't.' He slicks his fingers, and watches Merlin swallow, sigh, grind into his touch as he reaches down. 'I couldn't.'

The only place that Merlin yields is inside, and Arthur has to push to get there. 

Merlin's eyes flush with gold. His mouth works as he bites his lips and makes hungry wordless noises. His hands are over his head, tied tight, and Arthur can see where his fists clench. It's all instinct now, the way he reacts - just like on the battlefield. The rational Merlin gets tucked away somewhere in his head, where he can't be hurt by his own actions until later, and the feral Merlin is in charge, the Merlin that doesn't care that the men he kills are just following orders, or that Arthur has a queen at home.

He isn't alone. There are a thousand reasons Arthur knows he should not do this, but they get burnt away by fire and hurt, by the need for someone who can take the roughness Arthur brings in with him from the fight, and by Merlin himself, who needs just as much, and who Arthur can never deny. He's lithe and tight-wound, like a rope twisted of muscle and sinew, under Arthur, and Arthur braces himself with one arm and uses the other to cradle the base of Merlin's skull as he tries to take this slowly and fails, fails utterly. The bed shunts and creaks under them and Arthur shoves home all the way into Merlin's body, over and over, with Merlin's legs knotted like a girdle about his waist. 

'You - you have to -' Merlin is saying, panting, pushing into Arthur's penetration as if he can make himself open faster or take more, 'Arthur -' and he's straining hard against his bonds, hard enough to make his wrists glow red, rubbing himself raw. Arthur knows Merlin; Merlin's body, Merlin's reactions. This isn't a plea for freedom - Merlin doesn't want to escape - he's protesting the breadth of the freedom he has. So Arthur draws out, far enough to make Merlin hiss dire threats and far enough that he can change how they lie, to take his weight from his arms to his knees, to pull Merlin over onto his own knees and push him head-down into the softness of the bed, face turned so that he can breathe, arms still stretched out taut. Arthur presses down on the knots at Merlin's wrists and watches Merlin's eyes flutter shut as he aligns himself once more. 

The angle of attack has changed, and Merlin almost melts into the furs and blankets with it, with Arthur's weight over him driving the air from his lungs mixed into the noises of pleasure that Arthur has been searching for all this time, as if he's finally letting go of the fever of battle that consumes him. Arthur can't hold back any longer. He can't bring himself to withdraw even the smallest amount, just pushes, pushes, pushes and Merlin writhes on him, mewling threats and gasping praise and profanities, hands stretched out in supplication and bound into a mockery of prayer. When Merlin comes like that, with Arthur's name trickling from his mouth, over and over, syllable by syllable, it's as if he's bespelled Arthur to him, because Arthur gets no warning other than a sudden rush of heat and glory and something a lot like triumph, and spends hard into Merlin's finally willing, finally _welcoming_ body. 

Arthur is still caught in the rush of his own thundering heart when Merlin stirs beneath him, drawing in his arms to prop himself up a little, and says, 'One day, your knots won't hold.' He holds up a wrist as proof - he's freed himself of the cloth, with only the raw rub-marks left to show.

Arthur lifts his head, muzzily, and sees that Merlin's eyes are cool blue again, with shadows beneath them in the dying candlelight. 'One day I hope I won't need them,' he says, and pulls himself from Merlin, casting around for a rag to clean them both up with. 

'It's getting worse,' Merlin says, untwisting himself from under Arthur and sitting up against the head of the bed. Arthur finds the remains of a shirt and dunks it in his ewer. The water is cold, but it's refreshing. He swipes at himself with a corner of it and then reaches for Merlin. ' _I'm_ getting worse,' Merlin says, taking the rag from Arthur's hand rather than letting him work. 

'I can manage,' says Arthur, both about the cleaning and about Merlin. He can. 

Merlin finishes wiping himself clean, and doesn't answer. 

Arthur puts a hand to his shoulder, makes him look. 'You don't frighten me, Merlin,' he says, insistent that he be heard. 

'I should,' says Merlin. 'One day, Arthur, your knots won't hold.'


End file.
